Often LEGO creations are simplified, cartoony versions of what they represent, with some details skipped for a better overall effect. Hardly so in this medieval construction site by Jonas Kramm. There are more realistic details here than I could count, but I should point out the wooden supports and the amazing stone brick construction. Most importantly, the scene feels real. The composition and minifig action really make you feel like you are back in time.
This is a question we all ask ourselves every now and then, but members of a Russian LUG took it a step further and built their life with and without the precious brick for a recent LUG building challenge. Over on the shelf, we see that Timofey Tkachev‘s home would probably be filled with a mineral collection if he didn’t have his LEGO hobby. On the right we can see what Timofey guesses his apartment would like without LEGO to keep him grounded. There are lots of clever details to see on both sides, like the carpet’s edge and the LEGO shop bag nearly out of frame. The figure also references the builder’s previous creation, where we can compare what the builder fancies he’d look like with or without ABS.
That hipster burger joint downtown doesn’t have anything on Big Belly Burger, where you just might have to cart your lunch back to the office on a dolly, because your 57-pound patty is too big to lift. This view of the chaotic lunch rush by Nick Sweetman gives us a quick glimpse of the biggest burger place in town. And they weren’t kidding when they said the burgers are char-broiled.
This scene by Didier Burtin reminds me of the hit 1990 monster movie Tremors starting Kevin Bacon. It features a worm-like monster of unknown origin that terrifies folks in a desert town. It slithers underground and feels the vibrations on the surface to detect – and then rise to devour – its next victim. So, if there’s no fossil history of these gargantuan man-eating snakes, I can only deduce they must be of an alien origin.
There’s nothing great about morning commutes, but they might a bit more tolerable if you have access to the Floo Network, like Ron Weasley’s father, Arthur. He uses it daily to commute to the Ministry, and this fantastic LEGO vignette of Arthur stepping out of the Network by Eero Okkonen is perfect.
The green flames licking Arthur’s legs are actually Duplo grass elements, a piece we’ve been seeing a lot of lately, as it’s the mandatory element in the latest round of Iron Builder. Yesterday we featured a lovely sitting room using the element, and we’ve previously seen it as a flying carpet, a hut’s roof, a cyborg dinosaur, and a very clever medical device.
Great LEGO building isn’t all spaceships and robots and Star Wars you know. Josiah N. cooks us up a beautiful domestic kitchen scene, which includes some excellent little touches. The rolling pin on the worktop, the white croissant as a curl of stray icing oozing from the pipe, and the classic design of the radio — all great. But the undoubted main attraction here is that mixer, and the clever use of an inverted knight’s helmet as the mixing bowl. Not just imaginative parts usage, it fits perfectly into the scene and looks fabulous.
Looking like a cross between napalm and chili sauce, Barqan Fire appears to be nasty stuff with a lingering afterburn. Jonas Wide showcases the weapon’s devastating potential in this explosive vignette. Everything about the build is pure class: the tiled roof is simple yet grand, the hints of woodwork and sand green give subtle highlights throughout, and the style of architecture is excellently done. The centerpiece, though, is the fire-breathing beast spewing hell itself at the nearby wall, which Jonah has enhanced with a light brick behind the explosion for extra effect.
Jonas notes that “the soldier doing the final adjustments to the pumping mechanism has however unknowingly built up way too much pressure in the cylinder…” Let’s hope a bigger explosion isn’t imminent!
Ever wondered where those yellow sticky notes came from? Well as they say, necessity is the mother of invention. Arthur Fry was tired of losing his place in his hymn book, wanted a reusable bookmark, and viola – the Post-it note was born! Builder JD Keller has created an hilarious scene featuring Mr. Fry on a fantastic wheelie chair surrounded by his beloved little yellow re-stickable notes. Clearly he has a lot on his plate – not only are there stacks of memos on the table, stuck on the walls, filing cabinet and classic old CRT monitor, but they also feature on the pot plant, telephone and (my favorite) the bottom of his coffee mug.
I am not here to downplay the classic minifig’s ability to convey emotion, but it is a fact that its range of movement is much more limited than that of a Technic figure. Heikki Mattila uses this posability to great effect in his large scale vignette called “Thinking at night”. The technic figure is set in a convincingly contemplating and perfectly peaceful pose, while the setting is full of nice details like tyres, boxes and more. The backlit window makes for a convincing nighttime effect as well. I could not imagine a better happy place for a Technic figure than a workshop or garage.
Ever wonder what it might look like to wander the streets of New York at night, if you were a minifigure and the city was made of LEGO? Builder sponki25 has taken some incredible shots of his brick-built emergency vehicles, placing them in their urban environment, and it gives us exactly that experience.
We’ve highlighted some of Sponki’s amazing minifigure-scale emergency vehicles before, but he continues to grow his collection, recently adding a GMC 2500 FNDY support truck and an instantly recognizable FDNY EMS Ford Interceptor (the law enforcement version of the Ford Explorer).
A magical place is how Jonas Kramm describes this serene little home tucked under a tree. What’s interesting is how there’s a particular element that belongs to the LEGO Duplo family that’s part of this build. If you’ve not spotted it yet, it’s the green grass element that forms the roof of the home. I wonder what beings live in this fairy tale wonderland — earth fairies, or ground trolls, or was it the home of Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy? I’ve got my eyes on that hole in the tree trunk, just waiting to see what pops out of the curious-looking land.
You can almost smell the clinical environment and hear the beep… beep… beep of the heart monitor in this hospital-themed build by Finnish builder Eero Okkonen. The IV bag hanging from the drip stand seems to contain the infamously yellow vitamin B infusion with a tube leading down to a rather frail looking hand on the bed. The pulse oximeter is hooked up to a large monitoring machine with a glowing display. Additional details like the “Get Well Soon” card and a couple of bottles of tablets are a lovely touch.
What is particularly impressive about this build is the ingenuity of the part that Eero used as the screen display for the monitor — it’s actually the underside of the current seed part in this round of Iron Builder, namely the Duplo part Fire/Grass/Ice 1x4x2.